Friday, May 13, 2011

There are times when I feel the need to do things in a different way, to get a creativity boost. Just practicing a new process, a different technique, or simply switching to a different medium, can also give a fresh perspective.

I enjoy experimenting and mail art is a perfect way to experiment. Occasionally, I have received printed cards, from other artists, and they looked pretty good. Since I am a painter, I am a hands on artist, but I wanted to see just how I could combine my painting with printing. So I decided to give printing a try.

First thing I did was ask around about the best card stock, to use. Each person has their own favorite, so I selected as a starter paper, a card stock, selected primarily because it had a texture. I next had to find a painting that I wanted to experiment with and it also had to be a fairly small one.

The first photo above is a painting that I had done on YUPO. I then scanned it and reduced the size to fit on a post card. It printed out quite nicely, but I was still wanting more texture. The card stock was AC White Card Stock and it worked great! I was very satisfied with that part.

The next two paintings are collages made from the scanned original, reprinted on white gummed mailing labels. My Re-Cycle Label series was born. I had discovered that the labels were perfect, to reposition, and re glue to card stock, for collage.

This was very exciting, to me, because it added another dimension, using the collage process. I am now filled with other ideas which I intend to try. So, my printing day ended up to be a very productive day and I was quite pleased with the results. Other printing experiments will be following this, as I want to add even more dimension to the collage.